


All seem to say throw cares away

by feyrelay



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Anxiety, Christmas, Christmas Shopping, Christmas Tree, College Student Peter Parker, Dirty Talk, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hanukkah, Insecurity, Inspired by Hallmark Christmas Movies, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV Tony Stark, Service Top Tony Stark, Sex Tapes, Tiberius Stone Is A Jerk, Unwitting Sugar Daddy Tony Stark, but not really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:13:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28316568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: A big, gay Hallmark movie-inspired tale of how all it takes is a little lack of proofreading on a card and a meddling FRIDAY to cause a huge Christmas mess. Quite literally what it says on the cocoa tin.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Peter Parker/Tony Stark, Tony Stark/Tiberius Stone
Comments: 17
Kudos: 56





	All seem to say throw cares away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tangodoodles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangodoodles/gifts), [Affectionary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Affectionary/gifts), [lemon_meringue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_meringue/gifts), [Peachbabypie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peachbabypie/gifts), [RedLink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedLink/gifts).



> Also partially inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/JoeJ_25/status/1208461250415472642) Twitter thread and photo.

It starts with a Christmas card.

Peter somewhat shyly comes up to Tony on the day after Hanukkah is over, and hands him an envelope. It’s unsealed.

“I wanted to wait until all of this was over,” Peter explains, gesturing at the white and blue and silver and gold that has thrown up all over Tony’s penthouse. “So as not to seem dismissive. But you said Mr. Stone sort of passively celebrates Christmas too, like you do? So I thought it would be okay to do just one card for both of you, like a couple's card. They're kinda what people are doing now…”

Tony smiles at the kid even as he unsheathes the card from its envelope. It’s not Hallmark, but not homemade either. It’s very possible Peter got this printed by someone off Etsy, and the thought that Peter is trying so hard to be nice to Ty, for Tony’s sake, warms him.

‘Merry Christmas, to my mentor,’ it says. _Oh._

Yeah, definitely custom-printed. And Tony hates to do it, hates to put a frown on Peter’s face, but he has to. “The thing is, kid…”

And Peter’s face falls, but Tony soldiers on.

 _It’s hard to explain._ “Ty is sort of the jealous type. Personally? I love this. I love everything you do, obvious life-threatening not-listening-to-me aside. But unless you’ve got another card stashed somewhere in those _very_ tight jeans,” Tony says critically, looking Peter up and down, “and I doubt it, well. I just think he’s going to feel just a little left out. Don’t they have cards addressed _for_ couples now, if it's what everyone is doing, even the gay ones?”

Peter nods, somewhat jerkily. Even Tony can tell that he has upset him. Oh, God. He hates upsetting Peter.

He digs for his wallet. “Here, take some cash, see if you can find something that’s not just for me. You’d be doing me a favor, Pete, keeping me out of the doghouse. Sorry for the trouble, but I just really don’t want any confrontation until after the holidays.”

And Peter gives him a soft sort of smile at that. “Of course not,” he says gently. He puts his hand on Tony’s arm, over Tony’s nice suit jacket. “I know this month is tough for you.”

Tony’s throat goes tight, and he looks at the hand on his arm, then Peter, then the hand again. With his other arm, the one not weighed down by Peter’s… pity? would you call that pity or just understanding?... Tony puts his wallet back in his pocket and grabs his sunglasses instead, sliding them on even though they’re indoors.

Peter removes his hand from Tony’s arm hastily.

“Yeah, so anyway,” Tony starts. “I’ll hold onto this, treasure it always,” he says of the mentor card, pressing it into his chest and really hamming it up, “and you skedaddle and find something that’s not gonna start shit with my new…”

“Boyfriend?” Peter supplies awkwardly.

“Yeah.” Tony licks his lips. _Ty Stone is my boyfriend, after all these years. Weird. I remember when he had zits on his ass when we were teenagers and went skinny dipping, and now I get to trace the scarring with my hands as he-_

“Got it,” Peter says somewhat sharply, giving Tony some truly bizarre finger guns as he walks away. He keeps his back to the private elevator though, walking in reverse, still looking at Tony as he goes. “Let me know if you break up with him and make this whole thing easier on me.”

“What did I just say? No confrontation before Christmas.” Tony says it automatically, not thinking to say what he probably should be saying, like: _I’m not gonna break up with him._ Yeah, that probably would have been better.

Peter grins though, so that’s alright. “Do you really think you can keep from pissing anyone off that long?”

“It’s only a week, Parker.”

“So like I said, sir-”

The elevator dings and cuts him off, opening to admit Peter so he can ride down and get on with his life, do things that aren’t hanging around Midtown with a middle-aged lush, especially since Peter’s winter break from Columbia just started. The kid should be sleeping off a post-finals party, or at the very least sleeping off the finals themselves, not taking care of Tony.

But Tony’s smiling too, now, and he suddenly doesn’t want him to go. “Hey, lunch tomorrow?” he asks impulsively.

“What about your _boyyyyfrienddd?_ ” Peter returns, drawing out the word like he’s in second grade.

“Out of town. Won’t be back until the 25th.”

Peter steps backward through the elevator doors, a little blindly. He stumbles but recovers and holds out a hand to stop the doors from shutting. “Okay then. Lunch. It’s a date.”

And Tony’s stomach flips over as the doors close.

“It’s a date,” he echoes. No one hears him.

***

Tony calls Ty that night. “Hey, honey,” he starts the call.

“Hey. What are you wearing?”

Tony blinks up at the gloom of his ceiling. Manhattan never really gets dark enough, and he hasn’t had Friday dim his windows down yet, some restlessness telling his body that it may be time to lay down, but it’s not time to sleep yet. Still, be that as it may, he hadn’t expected Ty to just go for it like that. “Nothing sexy. I worked in the lab, so I’m a little grimy.”

It occurs to Tony, then, that that might actually _be_ a little sexy. He’s been with people before who found his ‘working’ clothes—namely a thin tank top or tee and some ratty jeans from the 90s—far sexier than his ‘work’ clothes—namely suits and ties. It was an important distinction, to Tony anyway.

But it appears Ty is not appreciative of the grease-stained aesthetic. “You couldn’t shower?”

Tony blinks again. Ty’s tone is surprisingly judgmental. “I’m still kind of keyed up, not ready to wind down. You know how December is, I’ve been on a work bender-”

Thankfully, Ty’s voice gentles as he seems to switch tactics quickly. “It’s okay. I know how you are.”

Tony nods at his ceiling. He knows how he is too. A hot mess.

It’s one of the reasons Tony had decided to take Ty up on his invitations to go out, actually. With Pepper, she’d had this idea of him as her boss, and then slowly discovered everything wrong with him. Sure, Tony thinks he did a decent job sprinkling some good stuff in there over the years for her to discover—like Iron Man and his desire to be a family man—but that hadn’t been enough, especially not when she started wanting him to give those things up.

Ty, by contrast, has known Tony for decades, if distantly. He shouldn’t have too many expectations or too much belief for Tony to squander.

Pondering all this, Tony suddenly realizes he’s been quiet too long; Ty is giving him an exasperated sigh, down the line.

“Sorry, I was just thinking. Like I said, I’m real restless-”

“Take a shower, Tony. Video chat me while you do it if you want, jerk it out for me. Otherwise, I’m going to bed. It was a long day of meetings and then I had to go and drink with the board of the business I’m trying to do this deal with. Honestly hate the way the Asians do things. So much alcohol.”

“You like alcohol, though?” Tony doesn’t bother to point out that ‘Asian’ is a blanket term too large to be comprehended. He can’t remember if Ty is in China or Korea, he’s so tired, but he feels like it matters. He feels like it matters a lot and that Ty, at least, should know well enough to say.

“Yeah, I like alcohol, but not when it’s being used as a stall tactic between me and my money,” Ty explains shortly. “Anyway. Gotta go. Go get soapy, make it look good for me, baby.”

And that’s easy enough to let rattle around in his head, once Ty hangs up. Tony is good with clear instructions. He gets out of bed and gets the shower turned on, with its many jets. He gets out of his clothes and instantly feels better. The water heats up very quickly in the Tower, but Tony takes the time to stop at the vanity anyway, and look himself over.

_Make it look good for me, baby._

He still looks pretty good for his age, even with everything hanging out. He’s got good muscle definition thanks to superheroing, and not too much flab thanks to his tendency to forget that meals are a thing. Tony’s cock is soft but even still it’s a respectable size, and the rest he can fix in the shower.

After setting his phone carefully on a safe ledge, Tony puts all that aside and steps under the spray with a groan. It feels incredible; see, this is the good reward at the end of the tunnel, when he does what he’s told by others to do.

Somehow he always forgets that and wants to go rogue. Clearly, his life would be better if he could just be good about it.

Tony works on getting the worst of the grease and sweat off first, letting hot water and a bit of body wash do their work. Then he takes his hair to task, and enjoys scrubbing at his scalp. Maybe he should dye it again? Though no less than three Avengers have called his growing-in greys ‘distinguished’, so maybe not. He couldn’t disappoint Clint, Peter, and Scott Lang like that.

(Okay, he could maybe disappoint Clint like that. But not Lang—he’s too shiny and new—and certainly not Peter.)

Tony turns in the shower to rinse out his hair, and two things happen. One, he catches sight of his phone. Two, the jets start pummeling away at his shoulders and he lets out an involuntary—and vaguely pornographic—moan at how good it feels.

He doesn’t really feel comfortable doing the video chat thing, Tony decides after he’s done being vaguely embarrassed about his moan echoing off all the marble, but he could maybe record something and save it for later. Ty would probably be able to appreciate it more on a different night, anyway, if he really was so exhausted.

Quickly, before he can think too much more about it, Tony sets up his phone to record. He peeks at the camera through his wet hair then pushes it off his own forehead, even as his other hand slides down over his abs teasingly. He grins at the lens.

It’s not his first sex tape, if you could even call it that, not by a long shot. For the first one, Tony had been eighteen and dumb. For the next one he’d been twenty and _drunk_ and dumb, and for the latest one, he hadn’t even known it was happening. The taping, not the sex… though the latter had been a little cloudy too. But that’s a good twelve years back, now.

“I dunno if this is what you wanted, exactly,” Tony says to the camera conversationally. “But it’s what’s on offer.” 

He grasps his rapidly-thickening cock and gives it a few loose, lazy pulls. It feels better than it ought to, maybe because of the proverbial eyes on him. Tony tips his head back into the spray and swallows hard, then gives himself a few more strokes. It’s like starting a tiny flame, one that he knows is gonna swallow him up in just a few minutes. He can’t wait, _god_ , he needed this. Tony tightens his grip.

The way he arches into it makes something tight in his back pop, and he lets his head drop, stretching his neck and spine. He sucks in a breath as he does so, and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly with his off-hand. “Guess I’m a little tense,” Tony says to his phone, too honest. Then he tries to reel it back into sexy territory. “Bet you could give me a real attitude adjustment, though.”

And Tony imagines someone on the other side of that. It’s not necessarily Ty he’s thinking of; he has a hard time jerking off to people he knows, even people he’s with, because his overactive imagination gets caught on all the little details of who they are and starts spinning out. Instead, Tony keeps it nebulous. He thinks of a faceless, vaguely male person pulling up this video on their phone. He thinks about them looking at him touching himself, watching, listening to his words.

He thinks about them wanting him back.

It’s nice to be wanted. As Tony checks the angle of the phone to make sure he’s still on full display, he lets himself think about how nice it is, being in a relationship again, even though he and Ty have only been going out for a handful of weeks. After adjusting the phone, he leaves his arm there, braced against the shower wall; he likes how the angle makes the length of his arm look particularly muscular.

Plus, with leverage against the wall, Tony can thrust more powerfully into the tight circle he makes with his fingers. It’s just this side of too good to handle… it’s possible he’s been a little touch-starved. The flame gets higher.

Tony backs off a little to preserve both his dignity and his reputation for having stamina, and turns back around to face the main jet of the shower, showing off his ass a little. Ty will like that, he figures, since Tony has been exclusively the one bottoming since they started sleeping together. Tony makes sure he’s well and truly rinsed off and then reaches for the shower oil. Both Peter and Natasha, separately, had complimented him on its woodsy smell the last time he used it, so it’s now Tony’s favorite way to prevent wintertime dry skin.

The oil also helps smooth the way as he massages the last of the tension from his own shoulders. It would be better with someone else’s hands on him, and Tony twists a little to give his still-recording phone a speculative look. But beggars can’t be choosers, he figures.

Next, Tony continues working the shower oil into his skin, into his lower back in a way that quickly becomes a skim of his hands over his backside, purposeful and purposefully enticing. Tony bends into it even, reaching to smooth the last of the oil down his legs.

Realistically, he knows that given the phone’s angle, he’s not exposing anything more by being bent over than he was a second ago, but damn, he feels sexy. It’s less like the way Ty’s been fucking him lately—with Tony on his belly, Ty whispering dirty little questions that Tony nods into his pillow about, neck hot—and more like that first time. That first time, that was the time Tony decided it could be more than a casual thing. That time, Ty had leaned over him after their third date—dinner and a movie at the penthouse, Ty's sweet suggestion—had turned handsy. He'd looked over Tony's body with a hunger that had almost had Tony believing that the weight of years could fall away, that someone—particularly someone who had known him when they were both lean, and young, and unscarred—could find beauty in him still.

It had been a lot, and when Ty had made it clear he envisioned himself topping, Tony had gone with it. He'd been glad to do it, especially when Ty had dropped a kiss onto Tony's mouth just as he started fingering Tony carefully open, and said, "Hello old friend, I can't wait to be inside you."

 _Goddamn_ , Tony thinks now, as he straightens and turns back towards his phone, ostentatiously dripping more oil onto his palm, for his imaginary audience. _That was so good, that time._

"Were you enjoying the show?" is all he says, though. It's far easier for him to play to the camera than it is for him to stand here in the steam and introspect. "I know you like that, uh, rear view," he adds, making a dorky pun that Ty will probably sigh over, "but I think you'll like this too."

And with that, Tony carefully kneels in the shower, with the spray angled low to rain down on his back. He gets his knees spread in a slight V-shape and wraps his hand around his cock again.

"Fuck." Tony's eloquence is stolen by how slick his grip suddenly is.

He does manage to remember to grab the phone though, with his off-hand. He holds it up and at an angle; he huffs a bit of laughter because he suddenly thinks Peter would call it a TikTok angle. Tony smiles into the lens, even though he shouldn’t be thinking about that right now.

“I don’t really know what you’re into, what your limits are,” Tony explains earnestly, even as his eyelashes flutter and his pulse ricochets haphazardly like a stray bullet through his veins. It’s so incredibly good, to feel this desired, and to touch himself and care for his body after such a bender. The only real break he’s had was yesterday, when Rhodey called, and then Peter had shown up mysteriously afterward in _those jeans,_ Lordy. They were probably ganging up on him, those two.

But that still didn’t explain the jeans. Or the fact that Tony was now jerking it thinking about them.

Shaking that off, Tony manages to remember where his tangent was going and looks back up at the phone. “I don’t know if you’d even want to… you know,” he says, uncharacteristically hesitantly, nodding slightly towards the motion of his hand. “I dunno if you’d ever let me-” he’s about to say ‘top’ but it sounds so stereotypical, so almost clinical, generalized, that he doesn’t. “Fuck. I don’t know if you’d let me fuck you, but if you did…”

Tony trails off, and does a slow pan as best he can with his shaking hand, down his body. On the screen, he can see the mirror of the shot, which is mostly just his cock, hard and thick and steamed pink, especially at the tip. Slowly, he pushes into the curl of his own fingers, and Tony watches his screen raptly as a pearlescent drip of pre-come is squeezed out of him on the long, slow slide.

“If you let me fuck you,” he says, quieter now, “I’d do it just like this.”

He focuses then, with his entire being, on moving his hips, his dick, his everything not just towards the vice of his hand, but _through_ it, beyond it. Tony fucks his hand like it's not his, like it belongs to someone else, or like it _will,_ right up until he marks it.

It makes little snatched sounds claw their way out of his chest, his breath catching the longer he does it, and Tony has to squeeze his eyes shut briefly when he starts adding a little twist towards the head and over the dripping slit of his dick. He may be getting older, but he's not dead.

Tony bows his head through the sensitive shiver of his pleasure, letting the shower briefly run on his neck and sluice hot water over his shoulders. It spills down warmly over his nipples, and Tony jerks, a thrill going down his spine at how warm and slick and tight everything is.

Fuck, it's been so fucking long since he's been inside anyone. Not that he minds bottoming. It's a thing he hadn't done much of since college, until recently, but it very neatly separates Ty from Pepper in his mind. That's handy.

But there’s really nothing, in his opinion at least, like being able to use his body to make someone feel good, this way. There’s nothing like being accepted, welcomed, cradled inside, trusted to wreck someone with pleasure without actually _wrecking_ them. Tony’s good at that, and loves to do it.

The tiles are starting to be murder on his knees, though, so Tony shakes wet hair out of his eyes without using his hands and peers up at his phone. He bites his lip as he adjusts the angle, and only realizes how coy it must seem as he looks into the reflection of his own flushed face.

"I know I'm being selfish, but I just want you to let me make you feel good," he manages, followed swiftly by a shaky inhale as he increases his pace. He'd never fuck someone this fast in real life—he'd probably hurt them or at least wear them out, if they weren't super—but it feels good to sort of let go of the illusion and chase his orgasm physically, even as he mentally gets more and more into the fantasy.

His nameless, faceless video recipient is here now, in his mind, having somehow gotten through Manhattan traffic in record time, don't ask him how.

"I wanna make you feel so good," Tony murmurs over the wet, obscene sounds his hand and cock are making. He wonders if the mic is picking them up over the sound of the shower. Probably they are; he did design the thing to be superior.

Tony grunts and then starts to make his strokes longer, thrusting up and into them with more actual movement, flexing his calves and thighs and ass muscles. God, his fist is so tight and good, he can only imagine if it were someone he actually cared about who wanted him to please them.

The steam is getting hard to breathe through, though, as Tony's pleasure spirals higher and higher. " _Fuck_ ," he says again, with feeling. His gut clenches. "I wanna make you come."

He laughs a little raggedly and smiles at the camera, bringing it a little closer so it can focus more on his face.

"I wanna make you come, because you feel amazing and I'm not gonna last much longer. You're so good," he adds, mostly because it's what he'd want to hear, if it were him.

And his fantasy takes that to the next level, of course, so Tony thinks about the imaginary person he’s making love to just tightening up all over, reaching back desperately for him, probably panting or some shit. He knows he’s fucking up the angle of the recording just imagining it, his arm dropping, just picturing grabbing them around the middle and burying his face in his partner’s neck.

He curses and spreads his legs a little wider, fixes the phone’s view on his dick, breathing hard. “Look what you do to me, Jesus Christ. I don’t even care if this isn’t the kind of thing you’d want, it doesn’t matter, _fuck,_ I just wanna get off with you.” And Tony’s toes curl as he milks it for all he’s worth, his orgasm bubbling up hot and so shocking that he gasps and hisses through it as he goes over the edge, fully ignited.

It causes a wicked headrush as he shoots all over his hand with a choked little ‘ah!’ that he’ll be embarrassed about later. Tony orgasms all over himself, really, crunching in at the abs as he wrings another rope of pearly come out of himself, deep and satisfying.

Basically, he just totally fell apart on the floor of his own goddamn shower.

But when Tony can breathe again, he raises his eyebrows at his phone even as he lets go of his cock and smears a hand through the mess on his stomach. He says, “Sound good to you?” with as much post-sex gravel in his voice as he can manage.

Then he cuts off the recording with a wink.

By the time he gets rinsed off (again) and dried off with a fluffy towel, Tony is just drained. He’s had food, water, a shower, and an orgasm and now his body just demands the next stage in the process… sleep. Pepper had insisted on pajamas or T-shirts at the very least—something about his body hair irritating her skin when he inevitably octopussed around her—but Tony considers that he’s a) now single and b) out of energy for the day, and decides to give his very expensive sheets a full try.

Toweling off his hair just that last little bit, Tony tosses his towel towards the closet and collapses on top of his bed, snuggling his face into the pillow and letting his ass air dry. Sleepy already, he tells Fri to ‘wake him when it’s time to see Peter’ and promptly passes the fuck out.

***

“It’s time to see Peter,” Friday informs him in a cool voice.

 _Too bad Peter is the one seeing,_ Tony thinks semi-hysterically, since he’s currently faced with a wide-eyed spiderling, whose hand is still raised as if to knock on the doorframe. Tony has half his bedcovers clutched to his chest and half underneath him; he must have fallen asleep on top of the damned things.

“I didn’t see anything!” Peter all but squeaks.

“Yes, because that’s just the kind of thing people say when they haven’t seen anything. Very convincing, kid,” Tony manages to respond. There’s a pause.

“Right, so I’ll just… go?”

Tony’s not proud of the weird noise he makes in the back of his throat. It’s meant to convey ‘duh, yes, absolutely please leave my bedroom in which I am currently naked, Parker’, but he also thinks it probably loses something when he rubs his hand all over his face in exasperation. When Tony opens his eyes again, Peter has absconded to what Tony assumes is the living room.

Muttering, Tony gets out of bed and throws on jeans, a basic tee-shirt with a pocket on it and a nice sweater. Thankfully he remembered to give his hair a half-assed pass with some leave-in conditioner last night before collapsing, so that’s not too dire, though there’s nothing to be done about the dim bruising just under his eyes. Also, for a man who has several closets worth of clothes, he can’t seem to find socks that match this morning, so he settles for two black ones of differing brands, grabs some shoes, and goes to shoo Peter towards the elevator.

“Friday let you in, or…? Don’t make me take those admin privileges away, I don’t care what you say you need the lab for.”

“I texted you last night suggesting a new pizza place in Queens,” Peter starts to explain as they get on the elevator down to the private parking garage, “but _someone_ was too busy falling asleep butt-out to text me back.” This pronouncement is made with the biggest shit-eating grin Tony’s ever seen on Peter.

He lets the silence drift just that extra moment too long, and raises one—just one—eyebrow. Peter’s social anxiety does the rest for him.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, don’t be sorry, kid. But I thought you didn’t see anything?”

“Shut up, sir.”

And by the time Tony is faced with deciding what car he wants to take out to Queens for some pizza, they’re both smiling.

***

They take two steps into the pizza joint, and Tony sees the words ‘New York deep dish’ (whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean) up on a menu board, shudders, and takes Peter’s shoulders in his hands from behind. He leans forward and quite simply drops the word, “no”, directly in Peter’s ear, then steers him around back the way they came.

Peter clicks in his seatbelt a moment later, looking bemused. “No?”

“Absolutely not. Let’s go somewhere fancier.”

They end up at Maiella, which Peter grumbles about because he declares it neither ‘lunch’ nor ‘really in Queens’ even though they’re still on the right-wrong side of the East River in Tony’s opinion so _pah_.

“Can you get pizza here? Yes. Ergo, it’s a pizza restaurant. Shut up and order your food.”

Peter smirks at him across the table. “You treat all your dates this way?”

Tony smooths his napkin in his lap. “I believe the tabloids have kept an extremely detailed historical record of how I’ve treated my dates.”

There’s a beat. Their server takes a deep inhale as Tony flashes a smirk of his own, and then says, “So the salmon and the squash ravioli first for you, sir, and for your…”

“Ward,” Peter says cheekily, their own private joke. “Can you do basil on the Diavolo too, or is that just for the Margherita?”

Tony knows what’s coming as soon as the server straightens. “I’m afraid-”

“-that it’s an upcharge? Don’t worry about it, seriously,” Tony says firmly. Like hell it’s an upcharge, that’s not the way these places operate. More likely it was about to be a flat ‘no’, something about preserving the authenticity of the chef’s intentions or something, but the server catches Tony’s eye and nods.

“Of course.” But of course Tony’s not so lucky that he’ll get away with strong-arming it without some kind of comment. “And might I recommend the biscotti for after, something sweet to end the evening with? Unless you’ve other plans, Mr. Stark.”

_Zing._

Honestly, maybe he deserves that. Don’t think he hasn’t noticed how keen Peter is to babysit him; he’s found reasons to check on Tony, either in person or via text, every day since Ty left for Korea. (It was Korea, he’d looked it up while Peter was looking at the menu.)

The point is that the server is correct, it’s not quite right for someone as young as Peter to be spending the run-up to holidays with him, not really. If he were a better man, Tony would hand Peter a bunch of gift cards and unleash him on the best place in the world—New York City at Christmas—to have his own fun. 

“No biscotti for me, thanks, trying to maintain my girlish figure,” Tony manages to answer, putting that train of thought on the back burner, along with his mixed mental metaphor. “I’ll have coffee, though. Pete?”

Almost shyly, Peter answers, “Maybe just to try it?” tilting his face up at the server like he’s trying to make a good impression. Tony’s seen the routine enough times to know it. The only Avengers it still works on are Bruce and Steve.

When their orders are in and they’re alone again, Peter kicks him under the table, the little shit.

“Ow.”

“Don’t you think we’re kind of pushing it already, Mr. Stark? We’re really not dressed for here, and you didn’t have a reservation, and listen I’m just really hungry okay, so if we could not get kicked out, that would be _great._ ”

“They’re not gonna kick me out,” Tony sighs. He does, however, peer critically at Peter from across the table. “Or you, for that matter. Do you see many prettier young things than you around here? No? Thought not. You’re part of the atmosphere now, congratulations.”

He’s been trying to build Peter’s self-confidence, especially since the thing with Michelle Jones, and then Captain Stacy's daughter, Gwen. It was awful, what had happened, but Peter has to get back out there at some point and Tony’s noticed him making noises about maybe having a crush on one of his professors… or was it a TA? Either way, that was typical college stuff. Peter just needed to put his natural charm to good use and smooch someone at a party as far as Tony was concerned.

(Not that he thought about it overmuch.)

When Tony finally looks away from checking his phone for new texts from Ty, of which there are none, Peter is just leaning on his elbow all over the nice tablecloth, looking at him, waiting.

Seeing that he has Tony’s attention again, Peter slides another envelope carefully around Tony’s water glass. “Let me guess, no word from Mr. Stone?”

“Not a peep,” Tony answers absently. He takes the card out of the envelope with quick, careful hands.

“Hmmm. I hope this card is better.”

The thing is modern, more commercial. Tony would know this wasn’t off Etsy even if he didn’t know Peter literally had one day in turnaround time to obtain it. 

It comes to him then that no one else would have put up with his shit. If it had been Rhodey, he would have told Tony to grow some balls and tell Ty to get over it, if he didn’t like the Christmas card already picked out.

But not Peter. No, Peter always goes gentle on him. He babies him, really. Tony knows it.

Then Tony actually reads the lettering across the front. It’s possibly the most PC joint Christmas-Hannukkah card ever conceived of. _Let love be love and let joy be joy. Share it to the world (to every girl, boy, and nonbinary goy). To my friend and boyfriend, a very Merry Chrismukkah._

And there’s a picture of a suspiciously trim pair of obviously male-presenting torsos, one with an ugly Christmas sweater, and one with another sweater—nearly as ugly—in blue and white with a menorah. Tony likes it, and he thinks Ty will appreciate it. He’ll _really_ like the clear claim staked by the ‘boyfriend’ bit.

Of course, then Tony reads it again. And again. There’s a distinct lack of comma. It should really say, ‘to my friend, and _his_ boyfriend’. This makes it sounds like the friend and the boyfriend are the same person.

Namely, Tony himself.

 _Oh, Peter._ Tony makes himself smile. “It’s a great card,” he says, even as all his disparate trains of thought come crashing into one station.

_‘It’s a date,’ Peter had said._

Tony’s such a fucking idiot.

From inside his jean jacket, Peter is pulling alternate cards. “I picked up a few more, just in case. I mean, you gave me like a fifty and I dunno how _sensitive_ he’s gonna be about it, which whatever, he literally just got here, but…”

Peter stops himself while Tony’s heart is still hammering. It would be so like Peter to shoot his shot, before things get serious for Tony and Ty. And it would be so like him to do it like this, in a way that could be easily misconstrued and backtracked, to save them both the embarrassment.

_The way he looked at me this morning, all pink in the face, Jesus Christ._

The poor kid. He’s tucking a little wave of hair behind his ear as Tony watches; it’s getting long. “This is a really nice place, Tony. So like, just tell me if none of the cards are right. I got them next to the register at Alba’s, so just tell me if they look cheap, okay?”

_He went in Alba’s? Like, inside? Oh, god. He did it for me._

“Trust Forest Hills to have Chrismukkah cards, am I right?” is what comes out of his mouth, and Tony just wants to punch himself, or possibly sink through his chair and then the floor. This is so… unexpected. Except not, because Tony’s been aware of Peter’s crush on him for years, but he thought it had faded, along with the hero worship. He thought Peter was mostly into girls these days.

(But then again, he’d never thought Peter would step foot in Alba’s, after what happened to Peter’s Uncle Ben there, so maybe Tony isn’t as smart as everyone seems to think.)

Tony tries to stay quiet through the rest of their meal, but Peter keeps looking at him oddly. He is looking at Tony like he thinks he’s done something wrong, and they can’t have that. By the time Tony's done with his ravioli, he has tasked himself with coming up with things to ask Peter about so Peter knows he’s not mad, while Tony himself considers all his options.

"So how's school?" he tries, then immediately cringes. He sounds like someone's dad.

But Peter looks happy to be asked, bless him. "Great! I'm working on building this thing, it's not technically for one of my classes, but it's kind of an audition? They might let me jump into one of the pre-grad classes next semester if I can pull it off. Can we go home after this and I'll show you the specs in the lab?"

 _Home._ Jesus. How did Tony miss this? Sure, Peter was independent and careful with his secret identity; it made sense he’d seek out a fellow superhero to be close with, especially with his bad luck streak with civilians. But he had always assumed Peter would eventually make a move on someone like Thor, or one of the Guardians. Maybe Mantis; they got along. Maybe one of Xavier’s people, or that maniac mercenary if it really had to be someone older. Not Tony. Never Tony.

“Sure,” he gets out, after too long a pause.

Peter frowns but doesn’t comment on it. “Okay…”

They stay quiet like that until Tony gets his salmon course and Peter is already through his pizza, so Tony orders him another one. The server looks put-upon about it, but goes to get the order in, and Peter beams at him.

“My metabolism-”

“I know. Growing bodies and all that.”

Peter huffs. “I’m twenty, gimme a break. But also I want the pizza, so not too much of a break.” He’s smiling still and that’s something Tony can be proud of.

In fact, that’s generally the mark of a mission well-accomplished—in Tony’s book—when they do these little dinners and lunches, which they frequently do. It’s only occurring to him now how that might look from Peter’s perspective.

Tony decides to test the waters. “Not such a bad date after all, am I?”

Peter finishes taking a sip from his water glass before he answers. He puts the thing down and smooths his hands over his lap, looking down and then up to meet Tony’s eyes. “The best.”

It makes Tony’s heart pound. He’s so fucked. He can’t let the kid down, not this close to Christmas. And he knows himself. Now that he knows, he’s gonna be himself about it, Tony is sure of it.

(Disaster incoming.)

***

So, yes, it starts with a Christmas card, but it also starts with Tony suggesting they take the biscotti home, just to piss off the server for Peter’s amusement. And it continues with him leaving an even more grandiose tip than he otherwise might have, so that Peter knows he’s not an actual jerk. Of course, he’s got to follow that up with the suggestion that biscotti is better with hot chocolate, so they stop and grab milk, chocolate, et cetera and Tony teaches Peter how to make it at home, on the stove, just like his mother used to make.

All in all, Peter is getting the full Tony Stark Signature Experience, wherein Tony does his thing where he delays getting around to what his date actually wants until they’re practically begging him for it by the end. The only difference is that Peter wants the lab and not the bedroom, but that doesn’t change the way the kid shivers minutely when Tony passes behind his back, pressing a mite too close, to help him pour the steaming _cioccolata calda_ into two mugs.

“This is basically watered-down chocolate ganache,” Peter seems to lament.

“The better to fill you up,” Tony can’t help but purr, but Peter’s distracted anyway. He’s glad; that was a step too far. _Reel it in, Stark._

Peter is busy fixing up their mugs with whipped cream, to which Tony deftly adds both cinnamon and a stick of biscotti, each. “Hey,” Peter says. “That’s _my_ biscotti. Someone didn’t want any.”

“What’s yours is mine, yeah?” Tony quips, and that’s closer to the PG-13 teasing he’s aiming for.

They get their mugs safely into the lab, but Tony doesn’t let Peter get too far towards moving on to the main event. Instead, he draws attention to something he noticed about a week ago. “Your lab coat’s getting too small,” he tells Peter. He takes it off the hook and holds it out critically. “Yep, definitely gotta be getting uncomfy on those shoulders. You should take mine,” he adds, throwing his own lab coat in Peter’s direction. “I’ll get a new one.”

Or not. The only reason he ever wore one was to stop Bruce bitching about giving Peter bad lab habits.

Tony wonders briefly if laying on the charm extra thick as a kind of misguided Christmas gift to spare Peter’s feelings counts as a ‘bad habit’.

“Uh, thanks, sir,” Peter is saying. He clutches the lab coat to himself, having caught it neatly. “Smells good.”

Tony lets his smile curl up, slow, and doesn’t say anything. He’s been told this particular smoldering look speaks for itself. Besides, he has hot chocolate to sip, which he does equally slowly, getting whipped cream all over the mustache portion of his facial hair.

Peter blinks.

“So… Friday, can you pull up from my folder-”

“Wait, kid, I wanted to show you something I made for you, first.”

“Wha- oh, okay. Cool…”

And so Tony pulls out the big guns, a.k.a. the new nanotech web-shooter watch and men’s bracelet he has fashioned for Peter, modeled after his own gauntlet watch.

“Having the web-shooters on you 24/7 might’ve worked when you were in high school and hiding under those hoodies and sweaters all the time, but I figure you might want to start going out more, wearing different clothes now. I want you to have all the options open to you; you shouldn’t have to worry about hiding your wrists,” Tony explains, letting Peter take in the objects, feel their weight in his hands.

Peter quirks a tiny grin at him. “Can I try them on?”

“I insist.” Tony comes around the table and takes the watch and bracelet from him, setting them down. He tries not to be too smug about the way that the skin on the inside of Peter’s arms pebbles up under Tony’s fingertips, as he rolls up the sleeves of the lab coat to Peter’s elbow.

It’s selfish, probably a little fucked up, but he’d forgotten what it was like, to be crushed on. It’s really fucking good for his ego.

Of course, that same ego gets deflated quickly when Tony checks his phone in the elevator on the way up to the take-off pad. There’s a text from Ty, finally. It’s a picture of him wrapped up in the arms of a couple of strippers who are wearing sleeveless, fake hanbok that barely hang onto their figures by a thin ‘collar’ that is basically a strap around the neck. Tony’s never seen something more tasteless and tourist-trap-y in all his life, and he hopes Ty gets taken for all he’s worth. He hopes the women get paid a ton and take his wallet too, though they probably won’t, being consummate professionals. At least that’s how it looks.

_Fuck._

‘Wish you were here’, says the caption in the text, and Tony feels it all welling up. It’s been building for weeks, the idea that Ty knows Tony from before, when he was still drinking and fucking around, going to places like the one in the picture… from when he was still ‘fun’, to hear some people tell it.

Ty knows him from when Tony’s parents were still alive, too. Can’t forget that.

“Hey. You okay?”

Tony looks up at Peter and slides his phone back into his jeans pocket, pushes up the sleeve of his sweater, that kind of thing. Anything to keep his hands busy and Peter’s attention off Tony’s face, which he can feel has gone all square and wrong. “I’m fine.”

Peter takes a step closer in the small elevator, like Tony is failing utterly at the whole distraction thing. Damn. “Are you sure?” Peter asks. He takes another step forward as Tony nods, and then all of a sudden the elevator doors are sliding open onto a rapidly darkening Manhattan sky, the last of the sun angling in at just the right degree to make the tarmac glitter, and Tony can’t go to it. Peter’s between him and the door.

“Move.”

“No.” Peter even ever so slightly body-checks him when Tony goes to side-step him, the brat. “Do you have…?” Peter asks, tapping at the center of Tony’s chest. His fingers make the sound of hitting glass, even through the cashmere and cotton.

“Always.” Tony reaches under the hem of his shirt to detach the nano-basket and reactor from his chest, and Peter steps back. He re-attaches it outside his clothes. “Why?”

“Wanna go flying?”

And just like that, Peter is practically skipping out of the elevator and out of Tony’s way, the Iron Spider coalescing over him, mostly golden in this light. He steps into a handstand that becomes a flip, just because he can, and lands facing Tony.

“You coming?” Peter prompts him. He looks around, and gestures at the empty sky around Stark Tower, and Tony understands what he means almost immediately; there’s nothing tall enough from up here for him to web to. “I can’t do it without you, ya know?”

Tony takes two strides out of the elevator and thinks about how he’s been without his armor, without his suits or sunglasses, all day. And now Peter, apparently, knows he needs them—needs something to shield him—and is willing to make it normal. He’s willing to make it easy on him, like he always is.

Tony double-taps at the reactor on his chest and joins him in the last of the day’s light.

***

They end up drifting further south than Tony would have liked, and he only realizes it when he sees Lady Liberty herself, in all her moldering glory. Peter points from where he has webbed himself to Tony’s back, and they fly a little further to alight on the old, familiar ventilation building on Governor’s Island.

Peter immediately unmasks, probably as aware as Tony is that it’s a safe place to do so; no one had gotten any pictures of them here the last time, with the ferry incident. In fact, Peter lets the entire Iron Spider suit collapse down, and holds out his wrist to beam at his new watch. “Well, nano-integration test is a check. It melted right into the suit, just like your glasses do.”

Tony steps out of the Iron Man armor and gives Peter a thumb’s up. “Great.”

Peter, for his part, lets Tony pout for a solid minute. He does flips over the different railings and pushes off from every available surface, plummeting towards the waters of the Upper Bay below, testing his watch and bracelet as he webs himself back up, over and over, to where Tony watches the sunset.

Eventually, to get his attention, Peter stands outside the railing by hanging onto it from the wrong way—facing Tony—and sideways-steps directly into Tony’s vision, blocking his view. “Okay, so you’re really not okay, are you?”

“I’m fine,” Tony all but snaps, too quick. He pauses, noticing that Peter’s in just a graphic tee. His denim jacket and lab coat were both left at the penthouse, apparently. “Are you cold? You look cold. You’re cold. Here.”

Peter sputters as Tony pulls his sweater off over his head, and puts it on Peter. Peter tugs it the rest of the way on by himself, taking one hand off the railing to do so. That leaves him with just one hand hanging on, and Tony is honestly _so over_ this anxiety shit; it always bubbles up at the most inconvenient times.

He puts his hand over Peter’s on the railing, just to make sure.

The thing is, Tony thinks absently, that everyone fucking dies. Or leaves. That’s what people do, where he’s concerned. And Ty kinda already seems bored, if he’s picking up strippers in Itaewon, so he’s probably next. 

Can’t lose Peter too. Just can’t. Tony holds on harder.

Peter, of course, promptly moves Tony’s hand, but only so he can struggle into the other arm of Tony’s sweater before pulling it down. Then he puts both of his hands over Tony’s this time, and says, “Thanks, I actually was cold. So about you not being fine…”

It sucks that Tony can see it now, the mechanics of how Peter’s previous hero-worship has transmuted and become _this_ , whatever ‘this’ is. This caring about him thing. It’s a real pain in the ass, and as the wind cuts through Tony’s shirt and he steadfastly ignores Peter’s inquiry, he thinks he might have preferred to stay blissfully ignorant.

He can’t ignore it when Peter palms over the pocket on his chest, though. _Oh._

Peter finds his card there, the original one, the one addressed to Tony as a mentor. “Oh, you kept it,” Peter says. He’s too close; they’re practically breathing the same air.

Tony goes to step back, but can’t with Peter holding onto his wrists instead of the railing. “Well, yeah, I said I would,” Tony explains uneasily. He tries not to get too caught up in Peter’s expression.

“And you always do what you say you’re gonna.”

“Nowadays, yes.”

Tony has a front-row seat for Peter biting his lip. “I like that about you,” Peter informs him and God. Peter’s eyes are like tiny worlds, his expression is so open.

_This kid._

Gently, not letting Peter fall, Tony disentangles himself from Peter’s grasp, replacing himself with the railing. He can’t be responsible for both of them right now, not physically and definitely not emotionally, not with everything he’s got going on in the head at the moment. But before he steps back entirely, he does give Peter a tiny kiss on the forehead. He’s been good tonight, thoughtful and mature. _I like that about you,_ Tony thinks in perfect echo.

And then they go home.

***

Peter decides to crash in the guest room, rather than waste time going back and forth to his little shoebox apartment that he shares with Ned, nearer to Columbia. Tony can’t say he blames him.

Besides, he still hasn’t seen Peter’s project, much to his chagrin. They’re scheduled to take one of Tony’s bigger cars—probably the Range Rover—to get a Christmas tree for Ned’s little girlfriend tomorrow. How he got roped into it, Tony has no idea, but that’s what he gets for palling around with a bunch of twenty-somethings; no one else has a big enough car. May’s tiny Volvo certainly isn’t up to the task. So, maybe Peter will show him the project before they head out for that.

As Tony gets ready for bed, he checks the time in Seoul. It’s early afternoon there and he knows Ty is off today for sight-seeing. He tries giving him a call but it goes to voicemail after only one ring. Bastard.

Because he’s him, he leaves a voicemail. “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.” And he hangs up. It’s a couple days ‘til Christmas anyway and maybe Ty’s just busy, but it makes Tony feel better and that’s what’s important he figures.

When he’s done doing that, Tony takes off his socks and settles on top of his bedcovers, dressed this time. He has a text from Peter in the other room that reads, simply, ‘thanks for my gifts :)’.

Tony snorts. If the kid thinks those were it for him for Christmas, he has another thing coming. He texts Peter back something inane, all the fight gone out of him for the night. Maybe he’ll get another shower. _That sounds good._ Flying always gets his adrenaline going, and he’s a tiny bit sweaty.

Before Tony can so much as roll over, however, he gets a text from Ty. ‘Nice. Real nice, Tony. Can you try to not be such a needy peasant for a few days at a time? I’m working, chill out.’.

Fucking yikes. Tony wonders if by ‘working’, Ty means he’s working on some more soju and scouting for tonight’s nightclub.

Resolving not to look at his phone until morning, Tony puts it in his nightstand drawer with Pepper’s engagement ring, though not before he instructs Friday to send Ty the video from last night’s shower. 

“To Tiberius Stone?” Friday clarifies. “Any caption with that one, boss?”

“Send it to the last person I texted. Caption: This is what you’re missing out on over there.”

“Sent.”

After that, Tony makes quick work of his shower, not luxuriating in it like last night. He takes a little more care with his hair, but that’s about it, and he lets the hot water just seep stress from him. It makes him sleepy in the best way, instead of plain exhausted like he’d been ten minutes ago.

He also opts for pajamas this time, knowing Peter’s in the house. He’s extra glad of that when he heads out to the kitchen for some water to take his anxiety meds with, and finds Peter having a beer.

Tony is going to do his best not to be judgmental. Pot, kettle, black, all that.

“Now who’s not okay?” he says, and _wow._ Not what he was going for.

But instead of rounding on him with some comeback, Peter just goes pink in the face and sinks down onto his arms to lean even further onto the marble counter and pick at the label of the beer. He mumbles but Tony doesn’t catch it.

“What was that?”

“I said,” Peter sighs, picking his head up, “that I’m sorry I didn’t come to your room. It’s just a lot, you know?”

Tony thinks about that as he gets his water and takes his pill. They did have a busy day. “Yeah. And it’s no problem, Pete. I got your text. Your thanks is all I need for building you stuff. I’m just glad everything works. I don’t need anything else besides that.”

“Are you sure? You seemed really… into it. Before.”

He watches as Peter takes another long swallow of his beer. They’re gonna have to talk about that. He’s not old enough, and although Tony doesn’t have a leg to stand on in that discussion, he usually doesn’t have beer in the house anyway. It’s only there because Rhodey and Carol are visiting with the rest of the team next week for a sort of Boxing Day thing. There’s vodka for Nat and Barnes in the freezer and hard cider somewhere for Clint and Steve, that kind of thing. If Peter’s planning to start drinking here, then they need to talk about it.

But not tonight.

Instead, Tony smiles and says, “Of course I was into it. It’s you.” And Peter chokes a little as Tony comes over and pats him on the back. 

While flying earlier, Peter had pulled off some aerial stunts that were truly amazing. Even up high with nothing to web to, he’d found ways to web to parts of Tony’s armor and then jerk hard to whip himself into the air. It showed an extreme understanding of physics, and a considerable amount of strength.

“I’d like to see your technique, sometime. Work out the kinks,” Tony puts into the conversation, since Peter’s being so uncharacteristically quiet.

“Oh God.”

 _Okay, so maybe that’s too much._ “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Tony soothes him instantly. “If I’m going too fast, then forget it, we’ll slow it down. The team doesn’t have to know yet; it can just be between you and me.”

Peter looks up at him then. “What about Mr. Stone?”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “What about him? He’s off doing God-knows-what and anyway, he has nothing to do with this. You and me, that predates him by about a million years. We’re grandfathered in, relax about it.”

Some tension seems to go out of Peter at that; apparently, he’s worried that Tony having a new boyfriend would mean changes to the direction of their mentoring and possibly the team at large. _Fat chance,_ Tony thinks. Ty had asked a few questions when they first started seeing each other again, about the team makeup and what kinds of responsibilities Tony actually had, that sort of thing, but not too many since then.

Peter finishes his beer and then looks at it, like he’s impressed with himself. “Okay,” he says slowly.

Tony takes the bottle for him, intending to put it with the other recycling, but Peter’s fingers tangle with his around it as Peter stands. He’s not wobbly exactly—not from one beer—but he doesn’t exactly seem like himself either. It could be a spidey-metabolism thing. “Steady,” Tony murmurs.

“I got it.”

It strikes him then, how comfortable Peter is here in the tower, how he belongs despite the penthouse being the furthest thing from anywhere else he's ever belonged. Tony likes that perhaps a little too much, that low ember glowing to life inside him that represents the same, lonely part of him that once built everyone their own floors here (without asking first).

That's the part of Tony that Peter just lights right up, as he goes and puts the bottle in the recycling like he owns the place and then comes back to give Tony a familiar, uninhibited hug.

It's such a lovely moment that Tony doesn't say anything at all, afraid to ruin it.

With his face against Tony's collarbone, though, Peter does speak. "This isn't, like, a one-time thing, right? Like if I go to bed now, and we just do our hang-out tomorrow and then I don't see you and Mr. Stone comes back, that's it?" 

_Pete. Sweetheart, no,_ is all Tony can think in that second, but by some miracle of his faulty brain-to-mouth filter he keeps from making it weird with a pet name. Instead, he says, "Of course not. I'll always have time for you."

Peter squeezes him in response, then lets go. "Okay. M'gonna go to bed then now, no offense," he explains, drawing back. "Big day tomorrow."

Tony nods encouragingly and pats Peter on the shoulder. He's just gonna finish his water and maybe have a midnight snack so the ghost of Pepper Past doesn't yell at him in his mind about the importance of not taking meds on an empty stomach. He shuffles back around the breakfast bar, into the kitchen proper, seeking bread.

But Peter has more to say. "It, uh. You really wore me out, earlier. More than once. I was really caught off guard. That's the only reason I'm not up for it now."

"You don't have to explain anything to me, kid. I'm bushed, too, and I doubt I did half as much as you." Peter had really gone ham on the flips and thwips and what-have-yous earlier, seemingly enjoying being able to be up so high in a safe way, with Iron Man there to catch him if anything went wrong.

"Yeah."

Tony gets some mustard on his sandwich and then looks for the turkey in the fridge. Maybe they have some Swiss; that would be ideal. _Hmmm_. When he turns back around, Peter's still standing there like he's waiting for something. Maybe he wants a sandwich too.

For the first time, Tony also notices Peter is wearing a different tee-shirt and pair of sweats, both Tony's, than the ones Tony had offered him an hour ago. He frowns and nods at Peter's clothes. "Did you spill on the other ones or something?"

Peter licks his lips like he's unsure, and that blush is back. "Yeah, sir. All over them," he admits, voice low. "I had to go in your room to get more, but you were, uh. Still in the shower."

 _Oh._ "Well that's fine. I mean, we're there," Tony says, referencing one of their oldest inside jokes about boundaries.

And just as Tony intended, Peter snorts a tiny laugh. "Yeah, I guess so. Jesus."

Tony cuts the sandwich in half, takes a bite for quality assurance, then hands Peter his share. If he gives him the bitten half, well, fine. “Creator’s fee,” Tony quips, then presses a mustardy, comically overblown kiss to the side of Peter’s head, careful to not get it in the kid’s hair. It makes him feel vaguely paternal, which isn’t quite the right vibe, but Tony doesn’t have a better handle for what’s going on with them so he goes with it for now. “Night night, spiderling.”

“Night,” Peter ghosts out, sounding suddenly affected by what Tony presumes to be fatigue. 

Tony feels his eyes on him all the way to his bedroom, whose doors he firmly has Friday close, with clear instructions not to let anyone in or wake him up until at least nine.

Then he finishes his sandwich, leaves his plate on the nightstand, and gets some shut-eye.

He studiously dreams of nothing and no one.

**Author's Note:**

> If y'all really wanna make my day special, please leave a comment. Ya filthy animals. 
> 
> Part 2 later this week. Happy holidays!


End file.
